Introduction
Paris, also called Alexander, was a son of Priam and Hecuba exposed at birth after a prophecy that he would bring ruin to Troy, but raised in secret by a shepherd and later restored to his family.
Family
The Judgment and the War
Paris is best known for the Judgment of Paris: asked to award a golden apple to the fairest of Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, he chose Aphrodite after she promised him the world's most beautiful woman, Helen — already married to Menelaus of Sparta. His taking of Helen to Troy directly triggered the Trojan War. Though not the war's greatest warrior, Paris proved decisive at its end, killing Achilles with an arrow guided by Apollo to the hero's one vulnerable heel.
As with all figures of Greek heroic legend, sources diverge on many particulars; the account above follows the most widely transmitted classical tradition.